Jingle Bell Abacus – Christmas Busy Bags

I just love this time of year! So many family bringing together events and activities to be done, the festive season filled with tinsel and jingle bells. As well as any religious aspects that are celebrated.

This year I have made 25 Christmas themed busy bags for the kids! These are great to occupy while I tend to the new baby, housework, festive cooking and the other 50 million little items like laundry.

A new Christmas busy bag will be available every morning for the first 24 days of this December!

Our first Christmas busy bag is this rather cute and easy to make Jingle bell abacus.

To make you will need:

hot glue gun to secure pipe cleaners and attach craft sticks to each other

First you will want to glue your frame together using the hot glue. You can use other glue but those take time to dry.

Thread the jingle bells on to the pipe cleaners so they line up in numbers 1 to 5. Here you need to make sure that you have big enough jingle bells so that they move freely on pipe cleaners. I suggest taking a pipe cleaner with you when you purchase them or buy a few different sizes of jingle bells just to be safe.

Add a dash of hot glue then wrap the pipe cleaner ends around your frame over the hot glue securing them in place.

Time to play!

Count the jingle bells

Slide them up and down the pipe cleaners

Center them to create a tree

Shake the frame and dance about!

This is a great touch and hear busy bag and both my 2 and half year old as well as 5 year old enjoyed it.

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Comments

These ideas are so amazing! I have two teens and guardianship of my 3 year old nephew, as you can imagine I have to keep little guy entertained while bring teens after school activities. These ideas are easy enough to make, and bring with us! Thank you for sharing such great ideas.